Several instruments are in that country’s language, Portuguese, and cartoons of a flying turtle in fading paint on either sides of the vertical stabilizer read “Devagar Mas Ciego Là”—“We’re Slow But We Get There."

Before the PBY became a HARP project, it was overseen by the U.S. Marines based in Cherry Point, North Carolina. It had just barely survived a hurricane. “The Marines loaded the wings with water for ballast but it flipped over anyway,” says Postel. “The wings were sheared off—the whole thing was a wreck.”